Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart
Biography Early Life Old Spence's" influence caused Alistair to finally enlist at Sandhurst Military School. He became acquainted with fellow student Billy Rutlidge. (DW: The Invasion) People who knew him said he had great ambitions even then. (DW: Who Killed Kennedy?) In 1954, he was a lieutenant stationed in Sierra Leone. While lost there, Lethbridge-Stewart met Mariatu, the daughter of a chieftain. Unknown to him she bore him a son, Mariama. (DW: Transit) At some point he joined the Scots Guards and was stationed for a time at Aldgate. (DW: The Green Death) Some time in the 1960s, eleven years before the spider invasion, he had a romantic encounter with Doris in a Brighton Hotel. (DW: Planet of the Spiders) First contact and return to Bleode Colonel Lethbridge-Stewart, while serving in Libya with the Scots Guards 2nd Battalion, was called back to England on the request of his old mentor and friend, Colonel Spencer Pemberton, to assist with the London Event. He replaced the deceased Colonel Pemberton, who was killed in hand-to-hand combat with a Yeti. He and Driver Evans were the sole survivors of a Robot Yeti ambush at Holborn before heading down to the London Underground to take command. It was at this time that Lethbridge-Stewart first met the Doctor, in their second incarnation, Lethbridge-Stewart showed a quick, decisive manner - though with a brief moment of shellshock after losing a second platoon in a running battle - and a ready acceptance of events, even believing the story about the TARDIS from the start. (DW: The Web of Fear) The UNIT Years Eventually, he risked his career by going over High Command's heads and petitioning the UN to form a rapid response force for alien threats. He personally spoke to Security Council members about the alien threats. (DW: Who Killed Kennedy) UNIT was duly organised, with Lethbridge-Stewart promoted to Brigadier and appointed head of the United Kingdom branch. (DW: The Invasion) This made him unpopular with many senior British officers. (DW: Who Killed Kennedy?) Four years after the Yeti invasion, UNIT investigated the mysterious activities of electronics industrialist Tobias Vaughn. Vaughn was allied with the Cybermen in their attempt to conquer Earth. With the help of the Second Doctor and his companions, the Brigadier and his men thwarted them. (DW: The Invasion) Having found the Doctor's help to have been invaluable, the Brigadier set out to recruit a full-time scientific advisor to UNIT. He approached Dr Elizabeth Shaw, who was initially sceptical of both the offer and the idea of aliens. At the same time, he re-encountered the Doctor, who had been forced to regenerate into his third incarnation and exiled to 20th centuryEarth by the Time Lords. The Brigadier took on the new Doctor as UK UNIT's scientific advisor, with Liz Shaw acting as his assistant. (DW: Spearhead from Space) He and the new Doctor lacked the easy rapport they had enjoyed during the Doctor's previous incarnation. Their relationship was further strained when Lethbridge-Stewart ordered Corporal Nutting to set off explosive charges around the Wenley Moor Silurian colony, after promising the Doctor he had no hostile intentions towards them, killing the Silurians, (DW: Doctor Who and the Silurians) The Brigadier was observing the recovery mission of Mars Probe 7 when suddenly they lost contact with the astronaut. He later encountered the Ambassadors and learned that General Carrington had met them several years ago and planned to expose them live on public television in order to scare the general public, the Brigadier with help from the Doctor, Liz and UNIT troops managed to stop him. (DW: The Ambassadors of Death) The Brigadier set up a temporary base of operations at an experimental drilling project designed to penetrate the Earth's crust, he and UNIT were tasked with providing security. He later attempted to help Liz look for the Doctor after he had mysteriously vanished. (DW: Inferno) The Brigadier employed Jo Grant as the Doctor's new assistant. Along with Captain Yates, they were immediately plunged into another Nestene invasion of Earth where the Brigadier met the Master for the first time. (DW: Terror of the Autons) Lethbridge-Stewart oversaw UNIT when it provided security for a World Peace Conference, while the Doctor investigated an unusual machine at Stangmoor Prison. However, both their jobs coincided, as the Master had devised an elaborate plan to disrupt the conference — first through an assassination attempt and then through a hostage situation at the prison. With the Doctor trapped inside, the Brigadier and UNIT infiltrated Stangmoor to retake control and rescue the hostages. However, the Master's allies within the prison hijacked a missile as well. Due to some careful bargaining by the Doctor, the Master was distracted enough for UNIT to destroy the Machine and the missile, although the Master managed to escape. (DW: The Mind of Evil) UNIT troops took charge of a crashed spaceship near the Nuton Power Complex in south east England. The Brigadier accompanied the Doctor, Jo, Government Minister Horatio Chinn and some scientists in gaining access to the ship and encountering the, seemingly benign, Axons. They then presented their new material Axonite which could do many wondrous things but it was Chinn who gained possession of the Axonite before any negotiations could be started. It became clear that the Master was helping the Axons to invade the Earth and UNIT troops fought many battles against the now hideously tentacled beings. They were only stopped when the Doctor managed to put a time loop around their ship. (DW: The Claws of Axos) When the Doctor and Jo investigated an archaeological dig in the village of Devil's End, they discovered the Master masquerading as the local vicar. With them and other members of UNIT in the village the Brigadier was unable to access Devil's End because of a heat barrier which had been generated by the Master. He and his men eventually gained entry through the barrier, but could not pass the animated gargoyle Bok, who was unaffected by gunfire and a bazooka shot. When Bok was rendered immobile after the Dæmon Azal's powers turned against himself, the Brigadier and UNIT managed to arrest the Master and take him away to stand trial for his many crimes. (DW: The Dæmons) While in talks over an international incident, the Brigadier arranged an investigation into the "ghost" that delegate Sir Reginald Styles had apparently met at Auderly House before the delegates arrived for the World Peace Conference. After the Doctor drove off in the Brigadier's Land Rover to follow some 22nd century guerrilla fighters, the Brigadier took part in the Conference. When the Doctor returned from the 22nd century, the Brigadier and UNIT helped repel a Dalek attack. The Brigadier evacuated Auderly House, as Shura's dalekanium bomb would have killed all the delegates inside, sparking World War III. (DW: Day of the Daleks) The Brigadier oversaw an attack on the Newton Institute in an attempt to stop the Master from controlling Kronos and time. (DW: The Time Monster) Although the Brigadier and the Third Doctor's relationship improved to a close friendship over time, the Doctor's formal ties with UNIT began to gradually fade when his exile ended. (DW: The Three Doctors) When Jo Grant left UNIT to get married, the Doctor lost another tie to the organisation. (DW: The Green Death, The Name's Shakespeare, William Shakespeare) The Brigadier invited the Doctor to a scientific research centre to find out what happened to the leading scientists that had vanished there. The Doctor found them (DW: The Time Warrior, Now Those Days Are Gone) in the 13th century, (DW: The Sontaran Experiment) and returned the scientists home. (DW: The Time Warrior, Now Those Days Are Gone) dinosaurs started appearing in London and the Brigadier and UNIT had several skirmishes with various dinosaurs. It soon became clear that Captain Yates was working with the people making the dinosaurs appear. These were a group of scientists and politicians called Operation Golden Age who wanted to take humanity back in time to prehistoric Earth and start again. At another point the Brigadier was relieved of command by General Finch (another of the conspirators), but, having regained command of UNIT and the Doctor having stopped the Golden Age project from going ahead, Lethbridge-Stewart arranged for Yates an "extended sick leave and a chance to resign quietly". (DW: Invasion of the Dinosaurs) Sarah and the Brigadier witnessed the Doctor regenerate into his fourth incarnation after battling the Eight Legs on Metebelis III. (DW: Planet of the Spiders, The Dark Dimension) Eager to leave Earth for further travels, the newly regenerated Doctor did help UNIT defeat the K1 Robot before taking off in the TARDIS with Sarah and Lt Harry Sullivan. (DW: Robot) Not completely having abandoned the Brigadier, the Doctor had left him a space-time telegraph to contact him in case of emergency. (DW: Revenge of the Cybermen) Even so, the Doctor was openly resentful when the Brigadier used it to summon him back to Earth for the destruction of an oil rig, which he initially considered a trivial matter. After defeating the Zygons, who had been behind the attack, the Doctor and Sarah again left in the TARDIS. (DW: Terror of the Zygons) The Brigadier attended Alex's funeral after he died at the age of ten. (DW: Rogue Who) After UNIT Late 1970's and early 1980's Lethbridge-Stewart retired from UNIT and the army. He took a post as an A-level maths teacher at Brendon Public School. In 1977, the Brigadier saw and touched hands with his own future self from 1983. The time differential shorted out, causing an energy discharge. The Brigadier fell unconscious and spent the next six years in a state of partial amnesia, having forgotten ever meeting the Doctor (DW: Mawdryn Undead) The Brigadier was attending an anniversary reunion of UNIT when, along with the Second Doctor, he was captured and transported to the Death Zone on Gallifrey. They eventually found their way through to the Tomb of Rassilon, where the Brigadier was also reunited with the Third Doctor, Sarah Jane Smith and Tegan Jovanka. He knocked out the Master when he appeared shortly later, after which Rassilon returned him to Earth. (DW: The Five Doctors) The 1990's By the 1990s, Lethbridge-Stewart had married his second wife, Doris, with whom he had a memorable holiday years before. (DW: Battlefield) The Brigadier came out of retirement briefly to help UNIT and its new commander, Brigadier Winifred Bambera, deal with an invasion from a parallel universe by the sorceress Morgaine. Once again, he met the Doctor, now in his seventh incarnation. Together they defeated Morgaine. Lethbridge-Stewart distinguished himself during these events, singlehandedly taking on the Destroyer and dispatching him, armed only with a revolver loaded with silver bullets. (DW: Battlefield) The 2000's One day in 2002 Lethbridge-Stewart visited Newcastle where he met up with Cliff Jones who was concerned as Jo and her friends hadn't returned home, the two then met the Eighth Doctor and Sid Suton, and after learning about Leftover and some alien insects the Doctor had been tracking some alien insects they decided to investigate. Heading to the Leftover base, he and the others discovered that Jo, Katie Tollinger, Sarah Jane and Liz had been put into a dream state by the insect creatures, after the Leftover team managed to free themselves Lethbridge-Stewart properly met Katie Tollinger and reunited with Jo, Sarah Jane and Liz, afterwards he made his goodbyes. (LFTR: Sweet Dreams) Death One day in 2003 the Brigadier was sitting inside his house when suddenly a time distortion switched him with a pilot on a ship crashing towards Karn, Lethbridge-Stewart attempted to make a safe landing but it was no use and the ship crashed on to Karn's surface, killing him instantly. His body was soon recovered from the wreckage by the Seventh Doctor and Ace, when the time distortion was fixed his body was switched back with the alien pilot and returned to his living room. (MOV: Doctor Who (2003) According to Sarah Jane, his body was found by Dorris and it was believed that he died from natural causes. (LFTR: Voyage to the New World) Legacy Sarah Jane had a photo of the Brigadier which she had on the wall at her desk, it was later destroyed in the fire. (LFTR: The Forgotten Boy, Voyage to the New World) The Tenth Doctor wrote about the Brigadier in the manuscript about his life. He then showed Sandra Armstrong the memory of his, Jo's and the Brigadier's battle against BOSS. (DW: The Name's Shakespeare, William Shakespeare) While in the Virtual Simulation reliving his past, the Thirteenth Doctor relived his and Sarah Jane's first adventure in Medieval England battling the Sontarans, during this Chris wore the Brigadier's uniform and took on his role in that adventure. (DW: Now Those Days Are Gone) Alternative timelines A parallel Earth had its own version of the Brigadier, Alastair Lethbridge-Stewart. Loyal to the fascist leader who governed his version of Britain, the Brigade Leader was the antithesis of the Brigadier. He was shot and killed by his lieutenant, Section Leader Elizabeth Shaw, while trying to force the Doctor at gunpoint to help him escape his doomed Earth. Unlike Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, Brigade Leader Lethbridge-Stewart lacked both a moustache and his left eye. (DW: Inferno) In an alternative timeline where the Silurians had killed the Third Doctor and taken over the Earth, the Brigadier and the remains of UNIT continued to fight them over the next twenty years. He realised who the Eighth Doctor was quickly after only a few moments, and asked the Doctor how he could be in front of him when it was known he was dead. After the Doctor averted his plan to destroy the Silurians with nuclear missiles in 1994, he agreed to begin negotiations with them. Lethbridge-Stewart was killed along with all the other inhabitants of that universe when the Doctor time rammed his TARDIS with the one he acquired there, destroying that universe. This was because the energy used by the alternate timeline shortened the existence of the main universe by billions of years. (DW: Blood Heat) In an alternative timeline where WOTAN took over the world, Colonel Lethbridge-Stewart and his men were sent in to try and defeat WOTAN, however they were all killed by the War Machines. (LFTR: Goodbye) Personality To be added. Physical Appearance To be added. Other Information To be added. Behind the Scenes To be added. List of Appearances Doctor Who Season 5 * The Web of Fear Season 6 * The Invasion Season 7 * Spearhead from Space * Doctor Who and the Silurians * The Ambassadors of Death * Inferno Season 8 * Terror of the Autons * The Mind of Evil * The Claws of Axos * Colony in Space * The Daemons Season 9 * Day of the Daleks * The Time Monster Season 10 * The Three Doctors * The Green Death Season 11 * The Time Warrior * Invasion of the Dinosaurs * Planet of the Spiders Season 12 * Robot Season 13 * Terror of the Zygons Season 20 * Mawdryn Undead 20th Anniversary Special * The Five Doctors Season 26 * Battlefield Season 31 * Blood Heat Season 37 * Who Killed Kennedy? Season 39 * The Name's Shakespeare, William Shakespeare Movies * Doctor Who (2003) Category:Characters Category:Companions Category:Companions of the Second Doctor Category:Companions of the Third Doctor Category:Companions of the Fourth Doctor Category:Companions of the Fifth Doctor Category:Companions of the Seventh Doctor Category:Members of U.N.I.T. Category:Deceased Characters